Saturday, September 29, 2012

Of all Jefferson’s inspiring and thought-provoking
quotes, this one is among my favorites. As the First Amendment Center’s
librarian, I have a special affinity for books, and as someone academically
trained as a historian, I have an appreciation for the Founding Fathers and for
the important words they left behind.

Banned Books Week — Sept. 24 through Oct. 1 — is an
annual recognition by librarians and book-minded people that the First
Amendment should never be taken for granted. I believe the freedoms embraced by
the Founding Fathers in the 45 words of the First Amendment also speak to an
implied freedom to read, yet history shows us that the struggle to maintain
that freedom has never been easy.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Dr. François Gonon, a neurobiologist at the
University of Bordeaux, together with his colleagues recently published an
article in The Public Library of Science, taking a foray into media criticism.
Using attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, for his experiment metaphor,
Gonon and company searched the databases PubMed and Factiva for articles on
ADHD. They found that 47 papers on ADHD received coverage in 347 articles in
English-language newspapers during the 1990s. From these, The Economist
reports, Gonon’s team picked 10 papers that had enjoyed fully 223 of the news
articles.

What happened next, if you’ll forgive me, turned out
to be a case of journalistic ADHD. While 67 later studies examined those
selected 10, the second batch received attention in only 57 newspaper articles
total, with most of them focusing on only two such studies. Gonon’s conclusion:
An “almost complete amnesia in the newspaper coverage of biomedical findings.”

Thursday, September 27, 2012

In just over a month people will be going to the
polls to vote for president and for other candidates. The presidential election
will primarily center on these issues: economic growth; jobs and unemployment; government
debt and spending; and health care and taxes.

All of these issues are to a certain extent
measurable in that we have a sense of how these issues will impact us
individually and how they define the overall well-being of the country. But are
these the real measures of the health and well-being of America? Does annual
economic growth or our unemployment rate, our national debt or the level of
government spending or even our tax rates and health care options determine the
health and well-being of America?

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Recently I was involved in a conversation on
Facebook about voting rights. I had shared a link about Hank Sanders, a
Democratic State Senator from Alabama, being denied the right to vote and I
commented that this situation was the result of Republican efforts to limit
voting by certain minority groups. Senator Sanders represents the city of Selma
in the Alabama State Senate and has been a leader in civil and voting rights in
this southern state for decades. As it turns out, in the cited case, Senator
Sanders was not denied access to a ballot for identity or racial purposes, but
was allowed to file a provisional ballot pending the resolution of a dispute
regarding his place of residence. A good friend rightly pointed out my error
and I apologized. I had failed to do my homework.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

There will be an amendment on the November ballot
that will probably be approved by Alabama voters. The amendment will reduce
legislative compensation. This proposition may garner more votes than Romney
does against Obama.

Most voters disapprove of the very controversial 61%
pay raise the legislature gave itself in 2007. That legislative vote, which
occurred during the opening session of 2007 and increased legislative
compensation from $36,660 annually to $53,338, has been a festering issue for
over five years. The sustained outrage is extremely unusual. In past years, an
egregious legislative act has been passed early in the quadrennium and late
into the night usually on a voice vote.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Whether you’re a sports fan or not, you have to
acknowledge the powerful cultural influence that sports have on our culture.
The values of millions of participants and spectators are shaped by the values
conveyed in sports, including our views of what is permissible and proper in
the competitive pursuit of personal goals.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Mitt Romney isn’t just out of touch; he’s also out
of sync with the movement to shrink government. In an interview clarifying his
now-infamous speech to donors, captured on clandestine video, Romney said, “I
think people would like to be paying taxes.”

Come again? He also said, “The good news is if you
are doing well enough financially that you can pay a tax.”

Friday, September 21, 2012

There’s often tension between government and the
press about access to public information. Typically, the news media strive to
use public-records laws to obtain information about government expenditures and
decision-making.

What’s on the mayor’s city-issued credit card? Does
that ambitious new developer have business ties to members of the city council?
Will plans for this development have a potential impact on the environment?

Getting answers to questions like those are almost
always in the public interest, but scrutinizing the actions of government is
never more important than when a member of the public is killed.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

The voters of Alabama have spoken and decided to
give Alabama’s elected officials more time to sort out the reforms needed to
put Alabama’s fiscal house in order. The message from the proponents of the
September 18 constitutional amendment was this: taking $437.4 million ($145.8
million per year for three years) out of the ATF and cutting by more than half
the oil and gas royalties that flow into the ATF was the only way to avoid
certain calamity in the state of Alabama. By outspending opponents of the amendment
by a factor of ten, that message was heard loud and clear.

But that was not the only message from this vote.
The way some key Republican leaders in the Alabama Legislature are interpreting
the vote, the people of Alabama didn’t just vote to give the legislature more
money to avert a budget crisis, they voted to give the legislature an
opportunity to make sensible budget reforms instead of forcing across-the-board
cuts had the amendment failed.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the
President, no matter what. Alright, there are 47% who are with him, who depend
on government, who believe that they are victims, who believe government has
the responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to
healthcare, to food, to housing.”

- Mitt Romney caught on an open mike in September
2012

You have got to be kidding me! Goddamn this pompous,
arrogant asshole and the silver spoon he rode in on. He’s the guy who was born
on third base and thinks he hit a triple. Do you want to know the REAL issue in
this country with the 47% worthless, miserable, human beings who Romney wants
to scrape off the soles of his $1500 shoes? Here it is in a nutshell.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Since my column appears in most of Alabama’s small
to midsize local newspapers, as might be expected, a good many of you liked my
column of two weeks ago entitled, “Small Town Boys Succeed.”

Amazingly, almost all of America’s presidents and
practically all of Alabama’s governors of the past century have hailed from
small town America or small town Alabama. My assumption and prediction is that
when I am dead and gone and someone analyzes the same subject a hundred years
from now it will read, “Girls who grew up in small cities succeed.”

Monday, September 17, 2012

“Americans are asking, ‘Why do they hate us?’ They
hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected
government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms: our
freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble
and disagree with each other.”

George W. Bush – Joint address to Congress

September 20, 2001

They DO seem to hate us, don’t they?Those Muslims, those “A-rabs”, those guys in
turbans?Muslims attacked us on 9/11, in
November of 2009, a Muslim attacked us at Fort Hood, TX, and now Muslim mobs
are attacking our embassies in the Arab world, recently killing the Ambassador
to Libya and several other US State Department employees. Those are the main
ones, but yes, there have been other significant attacks against us led by
Islamic terrorists. George W. Bush stated clearly and unequivocally in 2001
that they hate us for our freedoms!Really?

Sunday, September 16, 2012

A national tragedy at the United States Consulate in
Benghazi, Libya became a partisan spectacle Wednesday. Lacking a clear foreign
policy difference with President Obama, Mitt Romney decided that exploiting the
deaths of State Department officials was a safer bet than being seen standing
with the president on anything.

Before all the dead in Benghazi had even been
accounted for, as the consulate there literally continued to burn and
protestors continued to climb the gates of the embassy in Cairo, Egypt, the
Romney campaign was already sending out press releases calling President Obama
"disgraceful" and criticizing the president for apologizing for
America and leading from behind.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Constitution Day has become an annual fixture each
Sept. 17 in the nation’s schools since it was mandated by Congress in 2004 —
and 2012 may well be the best year yet for understanding its history and
appreciating its meaning.

A few days ago, the nation took notice of the 11th
anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., and
the thwarted attack that ended in a Pennsylvania field. Make no mistake, the
terrorists’ ultimate target was more than our national buildings and monuments,
more than the thousands of innocents who died — it was our nation’s way of
life, its economic system as well as its laws and freedoms.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Alabama voters are being presented with a choice to
be voted upon September 18, but an honest assessment of the amendment which
would transfer nearly half a billion dollars from a state trust fund to shore
up the state’s operating budget reveals there is only one viable option. It’s a
do-or-die scenario.

Lawmakers want to borrow $437 million from the
Alabama Trust Fund – a savings account resting on royalties from the state’s
oil and gas reserves – to temporarily bandage a gaping wound in the General
Fund, the state’s main operating budget. The Alabama Legislature failed to
solve the issue – one that stems all the way back to Bob Riley’s tenure as
governor – so voters will be forced to approve the measure or trust that the
legislature can go back into session and pass a viable alternative before the
clock runs out October 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year.

Though many voters are justifiably concerned about
shifting these dollars around, they should be more worried about how the
legislature would respond if we fail to approve the measure. The problem has
lingered for years, and during the last regular session, our lawmakers failed
to act again. Why trust them now, especially when they’ll only have 12 days to
remedy the problem should the referendum fail?

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

A good many of you have asked me to weigh in on the oil and gas money diversion referendum next Tuesday. As most of you know, I do not endorse or disavow issues or candidates. My purpose is to inform and entertain you as to the goings on in the world of Alabama politics. Therefore, allow me to explain this situation and the impending referendum offered by the legislature.

There was a television series that enthralled me several decades ago called “Rich Man, Poor Man.” It was a series about two brothers. One did well, the other faired poorly. Our state budgets are similar. We have one budget, the Education Budget, which receives 70% of all tax revenues. It is the rich man. The General Fund garners 30% of the revenues. It is the poor man.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

America pauses today to remember the innocent men
and women who lost their lives in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a
field in central Pennsylvania 11 years ago. Our citizens honor the police
officers, firefighters, and EMTs who entered burning buildings and dangerous
conditions that day, many losing their lives in the process of saving others.
We remember them even as their families mourn their loss.

Monday, September 10, 2012

The 2012 Republican Party platform contains a plank
concerning a possible return to the gold or other metallic standard. The US
dollar has been a fiat currency since President Richard Nixon suspended its
convertibility to gold on August 15, 1971.

The plank reads,

Determined
to crush the double-digit inflation that was part of the Carter
Administration’s economic legacy, President Reagan, shortly after his
inauguration, established a commission to consider the feasibility of a
metallic basis for U.S. currency. The commission advised against such a move.
Now, three decades later, as we face the task of cleaning up the wreckage of
the current Administration’s policies, we propose a similar commission to
investigate possible ways to set a fixed value for the dollar.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Those who anonymously damage the reputations of
others on the Internet may have a rude awakening. They’re not as anonymous as
they believe. We’ve seen a number of cases in recent months in which judges
have upheld subpoenas that give libel-suit plaintiffs the identities of those
who have been posting ugly things about them:

-In July, a federal district judge in Idaho ruled
that the Spokesman Review in Spokane, Wash., would have to turn over the name
of an anonymous commenter who speculated that $10,000 apparently missing from a
political committee might be stuffed inside the chairwoman’s blouse.

Friday, September 7, 2012

When Alabama’s State Board of Education voted 7-2 to
adopt Common Core State Standards two years ago, it joined 45 states and three
U.S. territories. The Common Core, created by the National Governors
Association’s Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School
Officers, standardized education curricula among the states with the aim of
better preparing students for college and the modern workforce.

One year later, the Board reconvened to consider
rescinding its earlier decision. Even though Gov. Robert Bentley joined the
opposition on the grounds that he believed the standards were tantamount to a
federal takeover of public education, the Board voted 6-3 to follow the Common
Core.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Almost immediately after then-Illinois State Sen.
Barack Obama stepped away from the podium at Boston’s Fleet Center during the
2004 Democratic National Convention, the pundits predicted his brilliant
keynote speech would catapult him into a successful run for president of the
United States.

As it turned out, they were prescient. Now, eight
years later, President Obama returns to the podium tonight to deliver yet
another speech at the Democratic National Convention. In the intervening eight
years, the nation is so much different and, in many ways, not so changed at
all.

This is a story about then and now. It begins with
boundless optimism, born of the rosy afterglow following Obama’s 2004 speech
that some wanted to believe heralded a post-racial period in American history.
Of course, that’s not how the story has unfolded. Indeed, since that speech,
nothing about Obama’s time on the national stage has suggested a narrowing of
racial concerns in the nation.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Officials at Northside Independent School District
in San Antonio, Texas, apparently view George Orwell’s novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four as an instruction manual rather than a cautionary tale.

Over 6,000 students will be required to carry
microchipped ID so that the district can track their movements in school and on
school buses. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips will be embedded in
student IDs. Doors within the two affected schools are presumably now fitted
with sensors that track students as they move from class to class, from the
cafeteria to the bathroom. The district’s administration is determined to
increase student attendance.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Writers and historians have done extensive research
over the years seeking to ascertain how our nation’s leaders reached their
pinnacle of power. These exhaustive studies have delved into the personas from
every angle imaginable. Most of these analyses begin with someone’s childhood.

Being a student of Alabama politics, allow me to
share with you my study of the backgrounds of our governors. My assessment is
that in the past six decades small town boys succeed. It may be because Alabama
was made up of small towns in the past generations that almost all of our
governors have hailed from small towns. My assumption is that growing up in a
small town allows someone to develop confidence and leadership abilities that
give them an advantage.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

The Environmental Protection Agency received another
well-warranted slap on the hand last week. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of
Appeals ruled that the EPA had overstepped its authority in its latest attempt
to regulate emissions that cross state lines. As one of the judges succinctly
put it, “[W]e conclude that the EPA has transgressed statutory boundaries.”

This is by no means the first time the courts have
told the EPA that its penchant for heavy-handed regulation is out of order.
Earlier this year, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
rejected the EPA’s attempt to retroactively veto a Clean Water Act permit
issued by the Army Corps of Engineers — in 2007. The court labeled the EPA’s interpretation
of the rule as “unreasonable.”

Since 2001 the Capital City Free Press has served as an unflinching source of provocative independent commentary in Alabama's River Region. The CCFP is a global, top-rated publication at The Ezine Directory.